I'm gong to level with you: the worst part of writer's block isn't the silence. It's the noise.
I sit in front of a blank page and my brain suddenly becomes a crowded room where everyone is talking at once but nothing useful is being said (I'm looking at you Carla and the staff meeting that could have been an email). Ideas bump into each other, stall out, and finally dissolve. And there I sit staring at the page, cursor blinking at me like it's judging me. Instead of words, I get static.
I used to think writer's block mean that I'd run out of ideas. That maybe I wasn't as creative as I thought I was. The well had dried up.
The villagers would die of thirst.
Turns out, I was wrong.
For me, the block wasn't a lack of ideas. It was a lack of access. Thank you, ADHD.
The first time I really understood that was a day I couldn't write a single sentence to save my soul.
I have a deadline (I Am Nine for the shameless plug). It's not dramatic. There's no publisher breathing down my neck. But it's one that matters to me. I had the momentum. I have a story I care about. And then... nothing.
Every attempt feels forced. Every sentence sounds like it's been written by someone pretending to be me. I'm deleting more than I write. I pace. I open and close the doc like that might reset my brain.
Spoiler alert: it doesn't.
I did this for an hour and half today before I did what I always do when I'm stuck: I grabbed a notebook.
No structure. No expectations. Just writing.
And it was hot steaming garbage.
"I don't know what I'm doing."
"This scene feels flat."
"OMG why can't I write like a normal person."
"Is this my goblin era?"
I won't be winning a Pulitzer.
I kept going though because journaling for me isn't about being good. It's about being disgustingly honest. The kind of honesty that knocks the cobwebs loose.
And a few pages in, something shifted.
The complaints turned to questions.
"Why does this scene feel flat?"
"Do I even care about what this character wants here?"
"What am I avoiding?"
"Do goblins have HOAs?"
Okay, that last one is ridiculous. Of course they don't. Probably. I kind of want that story, though.
But I was avoiding something. And that's the reason I was blocked.
I wasn't out of ideas. I was dodging the hard part of the story. The part that required me to make a choice I wasn't ready to make. That Nine wasn't ready to make. It was a choice that would push us both into uncomfortable territory.
That's when I did something that, on paper, sounds unhinged.
I called a staff meeting.
Not metaphorically. Not in a "writers are quirky" kind of way.
An actual, deliberate sit-down with my guy.
"Alright. Meeting's in session. What's the problem?" I asked.
"I don't want to face this part of my past yet," Nine said.
"You won't be able to move on if you don't."
"He isn't ready!" Shane injected. "Let him get there on his own."
At first, it feels like you're making things up. Because, well, you are. But if you give it a minute, something interesting happens.
When you stop trying to control the conversation, your characters start talking back in ways that you didn't consciously plan.
Shane was angry with me for trying to force a scene. I was worried that Nine's journey was dragging. I was worried that readers would lose interest. In trying to force it, I stripped away the tension that makes the story compelling.
Another time, a side character chimed in--totally uninvited--and basically said, "you've been ignoring me and it's making the story feel thin."
Also correct. Rude, but correct.
These "meetings" aren't about being whimsical. It helps bypass the part of the brain that overthinks everything and getting to the instinct underneath.
And that instinct knows exactly what the problem is.
Journaling and character meetings do the same thing: they lower the stakes.
Writer's block thrives on pressure. When every word has to be good, or meaningful, or worthy of being seen, your brain tightens up. It starts filtering before anything even has the chance to exist.
The problem isn't that you don't know what happens next.
It's that you're not letting it happen.
Trying to fix writer's block by forcing the words is like trying to break down a locked door. It just makes the noise louder. Fix it by changing the conversation. By getting honest enough to hear what's underneath the static.
It can look like journaling. It can look like a chaotic staff meeting with fictional people who have strong opinions about your life choices (quiet, Larak). Either way, the goal isn't perfection, it's access. The story isn't gone. It's just waiting for you to stop talking long enough to listen.